PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
A key challenge in animal behavior is disentangling the social stimuli that drive conspecific behaviors. For some species, like teleost fish, putative sexual signaling cues are inextricably linked to others, making it difficult to parse the precise roles distinct signals play in driving conspecific behaviors. In the African cichlid Astatotilapia burtoni, males are either dominant or subordinate, wherein bright coloration, territoriality, and courtship behavior inextricably correlate positively with rank. Here, we leveraged androgen receptor (AR) mutant male A. burtoni that lack dominance-typical coloration but not behavior to isolate the role of male coloration in driving female mating behaviors in this species. We found in independent behavioral assays that females behave aggressively towards AR mutant but not WT males, yet still mated with both types of males. Females showed enhanced activation of esr2b + cells in the hypothalamus when housed with either mutant or WT males and this activation scaled with spawning activities. Therefore, there is not a simple relationship between male coloration and female mating behaviors in A. burtoni, suggesting independent sensory mechanisms converge on hypothalamic esr2b cells to coordinate behavioral output.
摘要：
动物行为的一个关键挑战是解开驱动特定行为的社会刺激。对于一些物种来说,像硬骨鱼，假定的性信号线索与他人密不可分，这使得很难解析不同信号在驱动特定行为中所起的精确作用。在非洲丽鱼科鱼身上，男性要么占主导地位，要么从属，其中明亮的颜色，地域性,求爱行为与等级密不可分。这里,我们利用雄激素受体（AR）突变体雄性A.burtoni缺乏优势-典型着色，但没有行为来分离雄性着色在该物种中驱动雌性交配行为中的作用。我们在独立的行为分析中发现，雌性对AR突变体表现出攻击性，而不是WT雄性，但仍然与这两种类型的雄性交配。当与突变体或WT雄性一起饲养时，雌性下丘脑中esr2b细胞的激活增强，并且这种激活随产卵活动而缩放。因此,在A.burtoni中，雄性着色和雌性交配行为之间没有简单的关系，表明独立的感觉机制集中在下丘脑esr2b细胞上，以协调行为输出。
